Abbas Accused of Contradicting Childhood Narrative

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was accused of contradicting his childhood narrative of being forced out of Tzfat by Jews. Palestinian Media Watch stated this week that Abbas claimed at a speech at the United Nations in September that the Arab community living in Tzfat, were "uprooted and thrown into exile." Abbas was quoted as having stated, "I am personally one of the victims of the Nakba, among the hundreds of thousands of my people uprooted in 1948."

However Palestinian Media Watch stated that in an interview for a Palestinian Authority television station last week Abbas stated, "The [Arab] Liberation Army retreated from the city causing the people to begin emigrating. In Safed, just like Hebron, people were afraid that the Jews would take revenge for the [Arab] massacre [of Jews] in 1929... The people were overcome with fear, and it caused the people to leave the city in a disorderly way."

Tzfat, also known as Safed, is a city in Israel's northern Galilee region known as the birthplace of kabbalah and the home of many famous rabbis.